SFR: Al Gore's mistakes?

There is an article on the editorial page in today's (Oct.16) Seattle PI about Gore and Bush written by syndicated columnist Thomas L. Friedman. It's worth reading and fits nicely into the discussion/argument going on here.

GT, there is no easy countering study to throw out there, because single studies will be dismissed by those who believe, and there is no competing effort to the IPCC. You won't accept studies that show that the ice may have "moved" in the arctic even if the probabilities are higher than IPCCs, and is in different places and isn't necessarily being covered by satellite observation, or studies that show that it may have increased in the antarctic. You want one that says the majority of warming is not man caused. There isn't one because the IPCC is a collection of by and large governement fed scientists on a never ending gravy train with an agenda. Not even "big oil" can afford to compete with that. All we can do is look at the IPCC for flaws. I actually find LOTS of "final" probability numbers from the IPCC, and as soon as I can wade through them I'll respond to the 96% number. The chair said 90% repeatedly in Oslow. Backslidding by them or did you find a probability stat that wasn't the final anthroprogenic forcing number? Not accusing you of anything on that. Like I said I've found 3 or 4 numbers, and none are as high as 96% yet. As someone who has lived an breathed stats you know there's a HUGE difference 90 and 96. A scientist making a grant proposal would KILL for those 6 points, and desecrate the body for 2.5 more :rofl: I'm actually amazed you would defend the 90% number, even if it turns out to be wrong, given your background. Perhaps you should examine your bias versus your obviously extensive training?

Here's some info for you.

From the IPCC summary for policy makers

"A few areas of the Globe have not warmed in recent decades, mainly over some parts of the Southern Hemisphere oceans and parts of Antarctica" All this time I thought it was a closed system? Somebody must have left a window open to let the heat out somewhere.

"no significant trends of antarctic sea ice extent are apparent since 1978" Lets just ignore that because we don't know why and it hurts our study.

"changes globally in tropical and extratropical storm intensity and frequency are dominitated by inter-decadal and multi-decadal variations, with no signficant trends evident over the 20th century."

"No systemic changes in the frequency of tornadoes, thunder days, or hail events in the limited areas analyzed". Hmmm... I thought all those hail storms through texas and oklahoma last year were from global warming?

The IPCC says Volcanic activity has no impact and the effects are short term. Mount St. Helens spit out about 2 MILLION tons of sulfur dioxide between 1980 and 1988. In 1999 the US put out about 20 THOUSAND tons. Thats mount St. Helens alone. Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines (some spell it with an F) in 1991, injected a minimum of 17 MEGATONS into the air! Acid Rain anyone! By all means ignoring the volcanoes is good science!

Let's talk mitigation and socio-political issues they won't ever face. The IPCC says methane is more than 20 times as effective as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Rice paddies pump between 50 and 100 million tons of methane into the atmosphere. US methane, emissions have steadily declined since 1990. In 1997, the most recent year a quick search could come up with it was under 30 tons. You know, I bet with rising populations, rice production will remain stable and won't be going up at all! :rofl:

Wanna go on. You can find the journal articles that cover all of those statements I made. I'm not gonna wipe folks arses for them. If you care just google Methane Rice or Volcanic Emissions or Tornado Frequency... Or don't.

I've never said things aren't warming up. I said it's not as bad as the IPCC says, and that the contribution of the US to it are not that big a deal. We should definitely clean up, but having the UN and the World Court set and enforce rules for the world is a recipe for a socialist disaster. I will fight to the end to keep my kids from growing up in a third world country. Folks who feel as you do on the other hand seem to believe that if we weren't industrialized, things would remain in a steady state forever. That's arrogant and downright silly.

Oh and congrats on that melon on your shoulders. I only taught stats to undergrads as a TA. However there's a difference between "complex systems" and our planets ecology.

yes philster, there are ZERO refereed journal articles refuting climate change. your phony arguement regarding why, is just so much hooey. if, in fact, there was any clear scientific evidence that climate chage was not occurring, i can think of a dozen refereed journals who would all be more than happy to publish that study.

perhaps you didn't notice, but a chunk of the antartic the size of florida split off this summer. hard to ignore i'd say. and did you notice that the model which led to the published .96 figure by the IPCC was incorrect in predicting the artic melt off this summer?? had that been taken into account, i am sure the p value would have been moved to at least .98.

please, no more opinions and phoney rationales, if you have hard scientific evidence that climate change is fake, post the link, otherwise i might suggest you recognize that FFN has indeed been successful in brain washin'yah.

events occurring in our environment are just another example of 'complex systems'. now some would have you believe that you cannot understand the prime variables involved and therefore you can't model such systems. i would suggest that it is indeed possible to build such models and to indeed offer up predictions that tend to hold water.

Certainly a tough call...weeding out the truth from all this global warming evidence...natural cyclical stuff, or human-caused??? Maybe a volcano somewhere will go off really big, and cause a nuclear winter, making all of this discussion moot. Or maybe one of our insane political leaders will set off a nuke somewhere, with the same result. Or how 'bout the horror of a genetically engineered and unstoppable virus set loose by an insane radical terrorist, beyond the help of the WHO or CDC, decimating the earth's population?
I'm usually more worried about that drunk driver swerving over the centerline and taking me out as I return from gassing up the rig the evening before a planned fishing trip. Will my skin cancer get worse... (gotta go in soon for a "mole procedure")? Of course I don't have any dependents or progeny to worry about, so the "future of the future" is less important to me than is RIGHT NOW. I try to live "day-to-day" and "in the moment," as much as possible. I can't believe i wasted my time reading through this thread when I "should have been" out fishing. Nothing has been resolved or clarified here. I just had to toss in my $.02, though, didn't I? :beathead::beathead::beathead:
I think Al Gore is an embarrassment to conservationists everywhere. That doesn't negate my hatred for Bush/Cheney and their ilk, though.

yes philster, there are ZERO refereed journal articles refuting climate change. your phony arguement regarding why, is just so much hooey. if, in fact, there was any clear scientific evidence that climate chage was not occurring, i can think of a dozen refereed journals who would all be more than happy to publish that study.
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Calm down. I'm not arguing that climate change is happening. I said in my last post I KNOW it's getting warmer. It does that, and then it gets cold again. It happens. Lots of things die everytime it does. We're arguing whether WE are THE cause and whether WE can alter it. Stop saying I'm "refuting climate change" I never have, and it's like arguing with a 5 year old...

Send me the info on that Florida sized glacier. Larsen B was about that big, but that was 2002? I honestly havent' heard of one this year.

Dude, no offense, but I fear this post is a smoke cloud to obfuscate the whole discussion! The general public's understanding of water freezing at 32 degrees is equivalent to "Lincoln Freed the Slaves". It's true enough for most people to have "walkin' round" knowledge, but if you want to delve deeper there's ALOT more to the story. Science isn't surprised by what you state about water. Hell, the FDA allows Poultry that has been stored for extensive periods below 32 degrees to be labeled as "fresh" because the salts in the meat, and in what they've injected (yuck...) keep the birds from freezing. For space travel computations water is considered "non compressible", is that true? True enough for those critical computations, but is there any possibility of water being compressible at all? I'm open to hearing about the concept. Science has in fact "proven" many things about the freezing points of "water". Nice google search though!

Your science philosophy stuff doesn't help either. It along with your water discussion, and previous posts about science and statistics (perponderance of evidence) are actually the building blocks for an argument AGAINST the popularly accepted scientific method. Do me a favor. Explain the concept of statistical significance and tell me what it means when the IPCC states that it is 90% sure of its results. Heck, how about some of our other "scientists"? Anyone want to address the 90% certainty of the IPCC? Would you get on a plane if you were 90% certain it would make it (NO!)? Cross the street (depends on what for)? I don't expect anyone to respond. In fact I haven't seen anyone respond to any of my questions or assertions. That either means they are too stupid to waste your time on, or you can't. That's for everyone else to decide on. Except for troutfanatic. But with his reading comprehension skills, I'm afraid of what he makes out of "see dick run"

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"Nice google search though!" ???? Not sure what you are trying to imply with that. Or the putting the term 'scientists' in quotes. (Actually, I'm not that stupid. I spent quite a bit of time in grad school and am familiar with the behavior. I really understand that is a condecsending attempt at a put down. It happens any time a person comes to the table with a different perspecive, has diffentent information, or read different books. But here's the thing, those grad students and professors thought that their behavior was somemhow more acceptable than just coming out and saying "F*#k you", when in reality it is much, much worse.)

As for the 90% certainty.... In a 'walkin around knowledge' sort of way, I think those are good odds. Walking across a street in Manhattan? Eating at a Taco Bell? Wading across a river? Walking in a city late a night? Flying a plane? Odds are independent so just because 1 in 10 planes doesn't go down doesn't mean the odds are less than 10% than one of those thousand moving parts isn't going to crap out. But, that information comes from some reading a book written by some guy that made millions as an odds-maker in Vegas and not some other guy that spent most of their adult life on some university campus, so that would not be considered a 'reliable source' by some.

In a 'scientific perspective', where does the 90% come from? Is it just some guy saying "I'm 90% sure" or was there a series of statistical manipulations? What data was tested? Was the proper test used for that type of data? Was the data biased in some way?

Observational science can be hindered by a nomological deductive approach, as it assumes control of all variables and encourages the abandonment of multiple working hypotheses. For some reason everyone that relies on a deductive approach likes to say something to the tune of "That is THE accepted scientific method" and when someone doens't want to use their method they call out "postmodernism, postmodernism", because they believe that the whole world is to be viewed through one lens. And that one lens is whichever lens was given to them in grad school. However, in reality there are plenty of researchers that use an inductive approach.....astronomy, paleontology, geology... It's nothing new and nothing special.

Sloan Craven;289051As for the 90% certainty.... In a 'walkin around knowledge' sort of way said:

90% are good odds to you? You're out of my league in risk taking I've spent lots of time in Manhattan. Do you think your odds are that bad? Considering the number of times you cross the street in a week wouldn't take that bet unless I REALLY needed to cross the street. Do people get sick one out of 10 times in Taco Bell? None of those are acceptable to me.

So I guess in respons to your post I have to say: Hunh??? It's not condescending because you have a different perspective. I HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE on most things! You just kinda come off like you have no idea what you're talking about. First "Preponderence of the evidence" and now "a series of statistical manipulations"? Statistical manipulation implies an ethical lapse at best, and probably deceit. A series of statistical manipulations would imply you can't trust the data for a second. Maybe I'm being too picky but I can't help feeling those just aren't terms anybody with any exposure to stats would, or at least SHOULD ever use. Even in the context of a hastily constructed web posting! With all apologies to the Simpsons, it's like someone who claims to be lawyer saying the "law talkin' guy should have called for a bad court thingie"... The fact that you consider 90% good odds for crossing the street, eating fast food, or wading... Well, you're just adding further fuel to the fire. Your reference to the gambling book is interesting though. I once heard that Las Vegas and lottery's are a self imposed tax on people who don't understand math...

depends on whether its a 5 shot or a 9 shot. and that is a great illustration, BTY, of an unsubstatiated opinion being put forth as a fact. the roughly 700 published studies from refereed scientific journals clarify these sorts of things before making inane statements.

now you may continue to believe the FFN and the talking heads, or you might just do some reading from credable sources, sometimes tough sleding to say the least. or you could just go ahead and bash the messenger and demonstrate your unwillingness to become informed.

depends on whether its a 5 shot or a 9 shot. and that is a great illustration, BTY, of an unsubstatiated opinion being put forth as a fact. the roughly 700 published studies from refereed scientific journals clarify these sorts of things before making inane statements.

now you may continue to believe the FFN and the talking heads, or you might just do some reading from credable sources, sometimes tough sleding to say the least. or you could just go ahead and bash the messenger and demonstrate your unwillingness to become informed.

carry on, this thread is going nowhere.

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If you want to be childish, you should have said, depends if you it's an automatic or not... Info on the glacier please. EXCUSE me for making the assumption that just about EVERYBODY in North America has an image of a 6 shot, double action, revolver as the tool of choice for russian roulette. The detective special is an oddity, and I've never seen a 9 shot. Is that a .22 cal?

depends on whether its a 5 shot or a 9 shot. and that is a great illustration, BTY, of an unsubstatiated opinion being put forth as a fact. the roughly 700 published studies from refereed scientific journals clarify these sorts of things before making inane statements.
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Are you suggesting there are 700 published studies in refereed journals on Russian Roulette? Did you read them? I'm thinking we don't need 700... X number of chambers... X-1 bullets... Pretty straightforward really...

90% are good odds to you? You're out of my league in risk taking I've spent lots of time in Manhattan. Do you think your odds are that bad? Considering the number of times you cross the street in a week wouldn't take that bet unless I REALLY needed to cross the street. Do people get sick one out of 10 times in Taco Bell? None of those are acceptable to me.

So I guess in respons to your post I have to say: Hunh??? It's not condescending because you have a different perspective. I HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE on most things! You just kinda come off like you have no idea what you're talking about. First "Preponderence of the evidence" and now "a series of statistical manipulations"? Statistical manipulation implies an ethical lapse at best, and probably deceit. A series of statistical manipulations would imply you can't trust the data for a second. Maybe I'm being too picky but I can't help feeling those just aren't terms anybody with any exposure to stats would, or at least SHOULD ever use. Even in the context of a hastily constructed web posting! With all apologies to the Simpsons, it's like someone who claims to be lawyer saying the "law talkin' guy should have called for a bad court thingie"... The fact that you consider 90% good odds for crossing the street, eating fast food, or wading... Well, you're just adding further fuel to the fire. Your reference to the gambling book is interesting though. I once heard that Las Vegas and lottery's are a self imposed tax on people who don't understand math...

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nEven if I said there was a 1/1000 or 1/1000000 chance that I could get hit by a car crossing the street, by your logic I would have been mowed down by now. But statistical odds don't work that way so I'm safe. One in ten people don't need to get sick at taco bell for the odds to be 10% that someone could get ill. I really don't know the odds but after seeing restaurant kitches I'm not super optomistic. Either way, that would be like some guy playing roulette and they keep betting on the number 24 because it hasn't hit in a while so "it's due".

And to clear up any misunderstanding, I took graduate level statistics. There are half a dozen statistics books in my bedroom right now and I am familiar with the terminology. So whether or not I should use the term....well, its not deragatory towards any racial, gender, or ethnic group... Nope nothing wrong with that term. I think it's enlightening because so many people try hide problems with their data by throwing a K.S. test or a multivariate analysis at the readers. So I am implying the possbility of deceit. Scientific informatiton can be fabricated, manipulated, or just be collected poorly. I think people should acknowledge that rather than blindly accept something because it was written by someone in a white coat or automatically dismiss it because it was presented by a professional liar.

I really don't care if you agree with me or not. You're not interested in an educated discussion or open to different ideas because you are going to make judgements on everyone and everything without taking a few seconds to mull it over. You just assume I haven't a clue not because you are familiar with my education or IQ, but because I use this term or that or what I say just doesn't jive with your opinions. You just assume that I've read a book about gambling because it was authored by a mathmatician that happened to be a Vegas odds maker. You bring up the notion that gamblers don't understand math, rather than people looking for some entertainment.

Someone could probably tell you the meaning of life, but you would ignore it because they are serving you pancakes and coffee and speaking in a different dialect rather than mull over what they have to say for a few minutes.

As someone who has had a great deal of math and used it to quantify scientific data, albeit I'm a bit rusty at this point, I thought I'd dig up some information about 90% confidence/probability (a high level by the way) - as that seems to be where the debate has shifted within this thread at this point. Like everything else, it's simple to do a google search on the topic of statistics and get a refresher of what a phrase such as 90% confidence/probability
means.

From what I understand Philster, you're argument that mankind is not to blame would fall within the 10% confidence
level/probability. I'm puzzled why you'd argue with the odds stacked so highly against the opinion you're so
headstrong on proving...the odds simply are not in your favor, statistically speaking.

Also, just for the hell of it, I did a google search on a few notable universities to see if they had papers
published on global warming and found the following:

And if you can believe the NOAA, they said the following: "Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point."

Granted, scientific debate is healthy, it's how we arrive at the "truth". As I think we'd all agree, what sources we gather information from have a great deal to do with it's validity. If I get all of my information from Fox news, Rush Limbaugh etc, the data doesn't have much credibility. However, I chose credible sources, as noted above, and I'm "99%" certain that they're data is more reliable than that coming from the EIB network...

nEven if I said there was a 1/1000 or 1/1000000 chance that I could get hit by a car crossing the street, by your logic I would have been mowed down by now. But statistical odds don't work that way so I'm safe. One in ten people don't need to get sick at taco bell for the odds to be 10% that someone could get ill. I really don't know the odds but after seeing restaurant kitches I'm not super optomistic. Either way, that would be like some guy playing roulette and they keep betting on the number 24 because it hasn't hit in a while so "it's due".

And to clear up any misunderstanding, I took graduate level statistics. There are half a dozen statistics books in my bedroom right now and I am familiar with the terminology. So whether or not I should use the term....well, its not deragatory towards any racial, gender, or ethnic group... Nope nothing wrong with that term. I think it's enlightening because so many people try hide problems with their data by throwing a K.S. test or a multivariate analysis at the readers. So I am implying the possbility of deceit. Scientific informatiton can be fabricated, manipulated, or just be collected poorly. I think people should acknowledge that rather than blindly accept something because it was written by someone in a white coat or automatically dismiss it because it was presented by a professional liar.

I really don't care if you agree with me or not. You're not interested in an educated discussion or open to different ideas because you are going to make judgements on everyone and everything without taking a few seconds to mull it over. You just assume I haven't a clue not because you are familiar with my education or IQ, but because I use this term or that or what I say just doesn't jive with your opinions. You just assume that I've read a book about gambling because it was authored by a mathmatician that happened to be a Vegas odds maker. You bring up the notion that gamblers don't understand math, rather than people looking for some entertainment.

Someone could probably tell you the meaning of life, but you would ignore it because they are serving you pancakes and coffee and speaking in a different dialect rather than mull over what they have to say for a few minutes.

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I'll just say... Hunh? and leave it at that:rofl: The beauty of our world is that you'll find, or hopefully already have found someone who gets you. I did, against all odds (see how I tied all this back in there!), and believe it or not, I wish the same for you :beer2: Fish on Brother!